Tuesday, November 1, 2011

TV & Mobile Working Together

In the old days, you’d hear a song on TV, scramble to remember a few lyrics, Google them and then download the song on iTunes — if you’re lucky enough to find it. But the music-identification app Shazam is driving iTunes downloads on its own, and as they’ve provided us the chart below, TV can play a big role.

HBO is known for their musically significant series finales that bring songs back from the dead. When the final moments of Entourage concluded on September 11th and Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” played, viewers punched up their Shazam apps and tagged it (identified it) nearly 25,000 times:

With 150 million users, 1.3 million downloads per week, 2.5 billion songs tagged (8% buy the song according to Shazam) is the company ready to become the most powerful social TV app, now that they’ve raised money specifically to do so? David Jones, Executive Vice President of Marketing for the company says they already are. “We’re making television ads interactive,” he explains. “We know the precise time” a user Shazam’s during a TV ad, which he says, “can help the media buyers or agency” spend more effectively.

“We know interest level, and we can get that data back so they can shift spend around and get more out of television advertising,” Jones describes. Shazam recognizes the billion dollar business that makes the TV business what it has become and for now feels the solution is improving the engagement with the ad spots that we all know still run strong during our favorite programming.

Jones described that when they work with brands to make Shazamble ads, there’s “a setup fee and cost per impression or fixed price, similar to rich media ad campaigns.” He says the initial setup is between, “$50k-$100k,” and that “some are spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands because it’s effective.”

Their first advertiser, Old Navy, came together in six weeks when the company asked if they could do something for them with their commercials. “27% went deeper with the Old Navy commercial,” Jones said, enabling Shazamers to unlock exclusive content since the spot had been infused with Shazam’s audio recognition technology. eBay, Geico, Capital One and Old Navy are now some of the company’s biggest advertisers.